World Masters Sambo

World Masters Sambo

Lithuania October 24^th 25th 2009

5 members of the British Sombo Federation attended this event, they were competitors Paul Sawyer u66k 45 – 49, Russell Dodds u 82k 40-45, Leigh Till u100k 35-39, John Laver injured and Martin Clarke BSF president.

The Masters is a very friendly event meant for older men to have a get together and enjoy Sambo, age are in groups of 5 years plus weights from 35 -39 and so until you reach 65 years and over , yes you do get men in their seventies entering. The competition till 40 years is very similar to that of a full fledged International but age starts to take its toll after that, with throws not so high and fast but still very interesting to watch and most importantly still hotly contested.

The competition was run on a Knockout with repechage but unlike the BSF model where everyone who loses before the final gets chance to fight for Bronze in these events, here you only enter the repechage if you lose to a finalist. Russell Dodds fought a very good fight but I did think he scored the first 4pts if that had been the case he would have had a different strategy he lost to Dovidavicius Lithuania. Paul Sawyer in his last competition due to Knee problems was very unlucky not to get in the final and win Gold with only three in his weight you would have thought they would have a round robin NO Makatov Kazakhstan went straight through to the final on a bye, this fellow had been beaten by Paul on previous occasions. Paul was to fight Shvee Russia someone Paul had lost in the past, the Russian is World famous for his arm locks as the match started he made a dummy attack to arm bar Paul. He did not succeed then and at no other time throughout the match Shvee eventually won on one attack in a very disputed result, the match is featured on YouTube so let me know what you think?

Leigh Till performed better to win Silver his first fight was against Bandzinas Lithuania in a very even fought match with Leigh winning on a small point’s margin. He lost in the final to the very experience Abasov Russia.

BSF President Martin Clarke presented the medals.

On behalf of the British Sombo Federation can I congratulate the Lithuanian Sambo Federation for organising an excellent tournament, the hotel and food was of excellent quality, the organisation was perfect and the Lithuanian people were great. Once again well done, the only disappointing thing was that a lot of the FIAS Council was not present to see such an event but one person you can guarantee to be there was our FIAS President David Rudman. David realises how important it is for the President to be present at such events.

FIAS has come a long way under the leadership of David Rudman and Fernando Compte, in the beginning when Fernando started FIAS in 1985 no one would have believed after all the in fighting in the early days that we would have a one unified International Sambo body with over 80 countries being affiliated, this I believe is solely down to the work of those two great Samboists David Rudman and Fernando Compte.

I look forward to seeing you all at the forthcoming World championships in Greece

YouTube Clips

Leigh Till

Paul Sawyer

Russell Dodds

Sandy North Controversy

Parade plus Fights

Photo's

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